Storm Clouds

Storm Clouds

We had some interesting looking storm clouds and lightning last evening; but no rain here. Reports of rain in Empalme, the town south of us and also in Hermosillo, the city 125 kms. north of us; but as usual it went around us. Oh well, Mañana.

I went and paid the cable/internet bill yesterday. Finally got smart and paid for 2 months this time, so I won't have to head up there in the September heat. I also went to the bank, bought a new pair of shoes and some groceries.

Later on in the afternoon, I finally made the cheesecake type cake from the recipe I got from Irene the other day. We tried it out in the evening after it had set and it was quite good. It is so simple to make, that it is laughable. Recipe follows, try it out it is good. I don't have the name for the recipe though, so just call it "Irenes Cake".

Irenes Cake

1 can cream (for you in the USA/Canada, that would be 1 cup heavy cream)

1 can sweetened condensed milk (the thick sweet kind used for baking)

1 pkg. cream cheese

lemon juice to taste

Mix the above together.

Marias cookies (USA/Canada, use graham wafers)

Layer cookie/wafer crumbs in pan, cover with a layer of cream mixture. Alternate layers ending with the last layer being the cream mixture. Number of layers will depend on size of cake pan that you use, the more layers the nicer it looks when serving.

NOTE: Irene didn't tell me to mix any butter/sugar with the crumbs; but next time I will for the first layer in the pan to make them more solid when cutting/serving, subsequent crumb layers are fine without it.

It is very good, go ahead and try it. If anyone knows the name for it let me know, it is apparently a common recipe here in Mexico.

Candied Limes Anyone?

Candied Limes Anyone?

Nothing too exciting going on here lately. It has been hot, 35 C. in the shade, so we have been hanging out in the house in the A/C alot. It has even been too hot to go fishing! No more rain in the forecast.

Yesterday Irene brought up a plate with a piece of cake on it and a bunch of what I will call, candied limes. I didn't catch what she called them. The lime tree here is loaded with fruit, so she was out picking a bunch of them the other day and told me to pick some as they make good lemonade. I haven't picked many yet; but will. Anyway, she had hollowed out the limes, candied them and then stuffed them with coconut. They are OK; but not really one of my favorite things.

The piece of cake on the other hand was excellent. Kind of like a cheesecake. I took a picture of the limes and the cake was on the same plate; but as you will notice the cake is gone. We ate it!! I immediately went downstairs to get the recipe from her. I then headed to the store to get the ingredients to try it myself and that's where we are now. Ingredients here, laziness here. Oh well, it is the weekend.

We may go to San Carlos for dinner this evening and to have a visit with our friends who run a restaurant there. We haven't been there to see them since we returned from the Baja.

Ciro and Irene brought some friends of theirs that were visiting, up to look at the view from our patio last night and we chatted with them for awhile. They were apparently treated quite shabbily in San Carlos, (where they have a vacation home), by a couple of "ladies?" in the afternoon. They were cautious at first about meeting us; but things went well and it was nice. Too bad they had such an experience, just shows that some people forget that you need to engage your brain before your mouth.

I found an interesting blog the other day that I have added to my blogroll. It is here and is a good read: http://bnwisla.blogspot.com/ . He also has another blog where he writes about the trips that they have taken all over Mexico, it is here: http://exploremexicowithme.blogspot.com/ . Everyone needs some new reading material in the summer when they need to cool off in the house in front of the computer. Enjoy!

Mangos, Mangos Everywhere

Mangos, Mangos Everywhere

It is definately mango season. They are everywhere, different sizes, colors and varying states of edible readiness. These are here in our landlords yard, he has 7 seven types of mango trees. He also has other fruit trees. The peaches are tiny, they say because there was no rain and watering them is not the same; but they are delicious.

More Rain

More Rain

Thursday night we had another rainstorm. This one was quieter and I slept right through it, waking in the morning to a wonderfully fresh landscape. We had about 3/4 inch, more or less, I don't have a rain gauge so I just measure what is in a container I have on the patio. Today it is again cloudy and it was misting rain for a few minutes; but not enough to wet your skin even.

I have been wanting to try a restaurant here called Las Flautas for many months. The first time we went it was closed and a passerby told us that they are not open Saturday evenings. OK, last night (Friday), we decided to try it. We had been told that they didn't open until 7 PM so we went after that. When we arrived, it was again closed. The 3 benches that are in front of the restaurant (cemented in), have been pulled up and are just laying on the ground. We are assuming that the restaurant has closed, who knows, anyway we will not bother going again. We walked down to one of our favorite places called La Barca and had our dinner there. We are not heavy drinkers and I had never had a margarita, so I tried on last night. It was OK; but nothing that I would go too far to get. For 2 meals and 2 drinks our bill was $13.50.

I am always interested in the price of food in different areas, Baja California Sur was much more costly than here, of course, considering the freight costs. I looked online at one of the grocery stores weekly flyers in Alberta, Canada yesterday. Most things were higher, except for the products that I buy that are imported like the Kraft sauces/salad dressings. Not too big a surprise.

Comida (lunch) today is going to be Chicken Carbonara with a tossed salad, hopefully it will be good, as I am getting hungry.

Rain Last Night

Rain Last Night

We have been watching the lightning every evening; but until last night it has not rained in our colonia. Some of the other colonias (neighborhoods) in Guaymas had some rain a week ago Wednesday; but apparently we did not.

I was awakened around 1:45 AM last night by very loud thunder and bright lightning. The thunder rolled and boomed around the mountains and the lightning lit up the room. The regulators on the TV and computers were clicking, so I shut everything off, unplugged it all, including the cable line and sat down to watch mother natures show. It was raining hard and by 2 AM the water was running down the hill. This morning there was about an inch of water in a container that I had sitting outside, so we had a nice rain, the first in a very long time. I don't remember any rain since the hurricane came close last September, so this is very welcome. Today it is cloudy and breezy and is the first day that we had not had the air conditioning on since we returned last Friday; although it is still quite warm.

Otherwise, we haven't been doing too much. Settling back in, getting caught up with laundry, dusting, the usual everyday chores.

I have been doing a little more cooking than I did on the Baja. I found a new pizza dough recipe, tried it and we liked it better than my old one. I made biscuits from a new recipe also and today I am baking buns (with my old recipe) and trying a recipe for parmesan chicken for our comida (lunch).

Back In Guaymas, Finally

Back In Guaymas, Finally

We were supposed to pick up our home owners at the San Jose airport at 8:15 PM on Wednesday evening. After stopping in Los Barriles for a coconut shrimp dinner at Los Barrilitos restaurant, we headed for the airport, arriving about 7 PM. When we checked the arrivals board at the airport it said that the plane was going to be 2 hrs. late. Wonderful! When it finally arrived about 3 hrs. late we headed back to the house. We arrived back with no mishaps and shortly after 2 AM were asleep. Getting up at 6:30 AM, we finished packing and headed into Los Barriles to catch the bus at around 8:30 AM.

NOTE: I am going to give the exact price of tickets in pesos and an approximate price in dollars using a 10:1 exchange rate, as the exchange rate changes, if you want an accurate dollar cost, you will have to check the todays rate.

We caught the bus from Los Barriles to La Paz, 100 pesos each, about $10.00. We had intended to eat lunch in La Paz before heading to the ferry; but when we arrived at the bus station we found out that there was a bus heading for Pichiligue, (which is the name of the ferry terminal) in 1/2 hour so we decided to take it and make sure that we got there on time. The bus to Pichiligue was 20 pesos each, about $2.00. We arrived at the ferry terminal around 12:30 and purchased our tickets, which were 710 pesos each, bout $71.00. At 1:00 PM they lined everyone up to board the ferry, unfortunately we stood in line for about 1/2 hr. before being allowed to check our luggage and board. We hung around on the deck watching the birds and looking around for a short time and then realised that they were serving a meal. We were happy about this as by this time we were very hungry, not having eaten yet that day. We had a choice of 3 entrees and we both chose a beef stew served with rice, refried beans and tortillas. It tasted very good, the meat was very tender and the stew was tasty.

After eating we again went outside and watched them undo the lines holding us to the dock and we were away. At this point it was 3:30 PM. We spent the next hours walking around the boat and wandering outside hoping to spot some whales or sea life. We didn't see anything until just before sunset when there were some dolphins that followed the ship for awhile.

We arrived at the dock in Topolobampo at about 9:30 PM so the actual "on the water" time is about 6 hours. We then stood in line again for deboarding, this seemed to take forever and was about 45 minutes, everyone was getting tired of standing. Once we deboarded we collected our luggage and headed to find a bus to Los Mochis. We were lucky that we had gotten into line early and gotten off the ferry before a lot of the other people as the bus was extremely full. People filled the aisle standing!! The bus from Topolobampo to Los Mochis was 20 pesos, about $2.00. This bus stopped at a bus station in Los Mochis and we got off as everyone else did. Unfortunately for us this particular station did not have a bus heading to Guaymas so we got a taxi to take us to the Tufesa station, taxi fare 50 pesos, about $5.00. At the Tufesa station we bought tickets for Guaymas, by this time it was 11:30 at night. The bus tickets were 215 pesos each, about $21.50 and the bus was due to leave at 1:30 AM. We had a coke and sat in the bus station waiting for the next 2 hours. Thankfully the bus was on time and we headed for Guaymas finally. After a restless night with next to no sleep we arrived in Guaymas shortly after 7 AM, which was actually 6 AM our time as we do not go on daylight savings time. We then caught a taxi home, 45 pesos, about $4.50.

Once home we carried out all the stuff from the patio that we had stored inside while we were gone, vacuumed, went to the corner store for a few groceries, made sure the computers were online, ate and then laid down for a much needed nap.

We had a good visit with our landlords family and some of the neighbors in the evening and then later watched some fireworks from our patio. This week Guaymas is celebrating The Battle of Guaymas which occured in 1854 with the French according to our landlord. I guess there was a mock ship battle at the malecon around the same time as the fireworks; but we were too tired to go. Today there is to be a kayak race and a swimming race on Sunday.

We will have a busy few days as we need to do some heavy duty cleaning, do a major grocery shopping as we tried to use up almost everything before we left. We both also badly need haircuts as we were too lazy to do it in Los Barriles.

IT IS GOOD TO BE HOME!!!!!

Birds perched on one of the docking lines.

Getting ready to let go one of the docking lines.

Another of the docking lines.

An old ferry.

One of the lifeboats.

Man in the orange coverall working on deck.

Beautiful sunset over the Sea of Cortez.

Comfy Cat

Comfy Cat

I just happened to look up the other day and noticed Venezia sleeping in a basket. The thing is that the basket is on top of a wall that is about 5 feet tall! She was all curled up and having a nice nap, several hours later she nonchalantly hopped down and continued on with her kitty life.


We are on countdown here. We pick up our homeowners at the airport in San Jose on Wednesday evening and we hope to be on our way home on Thursday, July 12th, which just happens to be Roys birthday.

Colors

Colors

We listen to CFCW radio from Edmonton, Alberta in the mornings just to keep up with the news from our previous home. This morning they said that it was 15 C. there and 13 C. in the outlying areas. Here it was 26 C. and we were just comfortable. I guess we would not be comfortable there anymore without a jacket, even in the summer.
We may be in a desert climate here; but there is lots of color, both in the plants and animals.
This little cactus is putting on a big show, the hummingbirds really seem to like it.

Yellow Hibiscus.

Red Plumeria. I haven't seen this color at home and would really like a cutting of it. If you have never smelt plumeria, you don't know what you are missing. The perfume is indescribably fragrant.

Bright, blue sea.

Vibrant blue tail on a lizardy beast.

Pretty, yellow moth.

July 4th

July 4th

I hope that everyone in the USA has a wonderful holiday today.

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day

July 1st is "Canada Day" in Canada, so to all the Canadians out there, Happy Canada Day. Being in Mexico we won't be doing anything to celebrate it, no parades or fireworks here. Today is also sort of an anniversary for us. One year ago today we returned to Guaymas after spending 3 months back in Canada. It doesn't seem like a year has passed already.

We had a beautiful full moon here and I tried to get some pictures of it lighting up the water. As I don't have my tripod with me and I am shaky at the best of times the photos are not that great; but here are a couple anyway. It is wonderful just to stand and look at the moonlight on the water. Very romantic!!

We are on the countdown here for our return home. We pick our homeowners up at the airport in San Jose the evening of the 11th and we intend to be on our way home the morning of the 12th. It will be nice to get home.

This morning we have been lizard and rabbit watching. The resident rabbit spent some time feeding on the weeds in the yard and as usual he made sure he kept out of the way of the camera. I didn't want to spook him by trying to get closer, so we just sat and watched him. The lizards lead a dangerous life in this yard because of the cats; but that doesn't seem to stop them from coming around.